482 



that the coloring is affected chiefly duriug the stage before the coloring 

 of the perfect insect begins to show; that alow temperature during 

 this stage causes darkening, a high temperature producing the opposite 

 effect, a difference between 80° and 57° being sufficient to produce the 

 extreme variation in darkness caused by temperature ; a further lower- 

 ing of temperature having no further effect; that nearly the full effect 

 in coloring may be produced by a range of temperature of from 76o or 

 80° to 65° in aiitumnaria, and from 73° to 60^ in illustraria : that dry- 

 ness or moisture during the entire i)upal period has no appreciable 

 effect on the coloring of the adult. 



A general conclusion which the author ventures to suggest — provided 

 we accept the theory of Professor Weismann tliat existing forms of 

 North American and European Lepidoptera have come down from a 

 glacial period — is, that ''icing" the pupa causes the insect to revert to 

 its earlier form, and that experiments of the nature here recorded might 

 be of material assistance in tracing the evolution of the markings on 

 the wings of the most highly developed forms. 



In a sui)plementary note Mr. Merrifield adds that it is possible to 

 cause either the summer or winter form to take on the coloring of the 

 other, and produce from moths from the summer pupaj, specimens that 

 resemble those from the winter pupce, but not vice versa. The paper, 

 including a table and supplementary notes, covers thirteen pa^es of 

 text, and is illustrated by a plate of IG life-like chromo-lithographic 

 figures, 



ANOTHER CARNIVOROUS BUTTERFLY. 



The North American Feniseca tarqimiius was the first Diurnal Lepi- 

 dopteron known to be carnivorous in the larva state, its food being 

 various species of Pemphigus (See Eiley's remarks, Am. Nat. for June 

 1886). We now learn from Mr. de Mceville's great work on Butterflies 

 of India, Burmah, and Ceylon, vol. in (as reviewed by Mr. S. H. Scud- 

 der, in Can. Ent, vol.22, No. 10, October, 1890), that the East Indian Ly- 

 csenid genus Spalgis has also carnivorous habits, the larva preying upon 

 a sp&cies of Bactylopius. Dr. Holland's suggestion {Can. Ent.^ vol. 19, 

 No. 4, April, 1887, p. 61) that the East Indian Liphyra brassoUs might also 

 have a carnivorous larva was based solely upon similarity in structure 

 of the imago and has not yet been confirmed by actual observation. 



SILK NEST OF A MEXICAN SOCIAL LARVA. 



We have received through the kindness of Dr. Edward Palmer a 

 delicate silk bag, perhaps 6 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep, which 

 was sent to him in March, 1889, by Seiior Liborio Vasquez, of Monte- 

 zuma, Mexico, and concerning which his correspondent writes : 



The Silkworm which makes the baoj inclosed lives on the shrub called Madrono. It 

 feeds ou the wood of the tree and appropriates its fruit the entire year, I have seen it 

 in the temperate (warm) climate of the Sierra Madre, where it occurs on p, grand 



